Hi All ! I guess I just want to hear that I am not alone in this struggle: I have been living in Switzerland (Geneva) for the last 7 years. I arrived when I was 23 years old, I had to leave my home country because it became physically impossible to stay there. I worked all these years in both office jobs and less qualified jobs (I was a lawyer back home). I also worked on my French relentlessly and passed a C2 level exam, as well as a B2 level exam in German. I enrolled in the University and finished the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Swiss law. But… I feel I am constantly reduced in daily interactions to my status of a foreigner: whenever I meet someone in any context, the first thing they say is not “What are you doing in life?” or “What are you studying?”, but “T’as un accent ! D’ou vient ce petit accent ?” (“oh, you have an accent! Where is this accent coming from?”). And before you tell me that they are just trying to be nice and make connection… I swear it’s often not the case: once I answer (the country doesn’t matter here, but if it’s relevant, it’s a rather poor country with lots of various problems, not some fancy Norway or Germany), they just say “ah ok, cool”, and just continue chatting with their groups of friends without any attempt to continue the discussion and turning their back to me. And the question itself about the accent - when it’s the first and only question - hurts in its own way: I have been taking classes of accent reduction in French for 3 years twice per week, and I did some great progress (with lots of daily work and exercises, people at work tell me that my French is great and my pronunciation is easy to understand), but unfortunately some accent is still there. And more generally, I still didn’t manage to make a single Swiss friend, despite trying everything, like being outgoing, attending clubs and various activities, inviting people to apéros, etc. I guess it’s a temporary crisis of an immigrant, and one can definitely manage to survive the entire life while constantly being reminded that you don’t belong and no matter what you do, what defines you is not some degrees, or PhDs, or volunteering, but rather the accent of the place you did not choose to be born in. Because of this, the last months were pretty depressive for me. Can anyone relate? submitted by /u/Independent_War_4295
Originally posted by u/Independent_War_4295 on r/Switzerland